The Family Cross Page 9

  The only hope I had that he’d stay in my corner was my wallet and the hate he carried for his old boss.

  Twelve

  Sunday proved to be a day of planning. While we still had no clue who wanted to have me killed, we could make some safe assumptions.

  Whoever wanted me dead likely wanted something I had since they were willing to pay so much for the contract. What they wanted, however, we didn’t know. I didn’t knowingly possess anything above a million dollars in value beyond my condominium, and there were too many hoops for them to jump through for a hope at my inheritance.

  Revenge was flimsy, especially since I didn’t have anyone I could readily pick out as an enemy. We both didn’t feel comfortable completely taking it off the list of motives, but there wasn’t much we could work with in terms of investigating.

  So like the dutiful daughter I’d always been, Monday morning I woke up ready to work.

  “This is stupid,” Samson said as we walked inside the Ashby Corporation parking garage. We’d parked the Mercedes on the second floor, right in front of the sign that read “Regional Accounting Director.” He swung the key ring on his finger.

  “No, it isn’t.” The elevator to the ground floor was empty, thank goodness. “The people in this building are the people I interact with the most. You can go do your telepathy thing and figure out some information.”

  He stopped swinging the keys and clamped them in his palm. “I’m not going to start groping everyone we meet. And unless they’re thinking about killing you when I touch them, it’s going to take a few seconds to figure it out. I can’t just…bump into them or whatever.”

  I teetered on the heels of my Manolos and gripped my purse straps tight. “You’ll figure it out. Do you have your ID?”

  “I have a few.”

  The elevator hit the ground floor and pinged. “A few?”

  “Sure.” Samson pulled his wallet out of his coat as the doors peeled apart. “Do you prefer the name Carlisle or Joseph?”

  “Last names?”

  He squinted at both IDs. A pair of women in pantsuits gave us a quizzical look as we traversed the concourse connecting the garage to the building. They were probably trying to figure out what I was doing with a man who had such a terrible haircut. “Uh…Brown and Keene?”

  “Brown,” I said and stopped in front of a pair of glass doors. “There are some wealthy Browns in the area. Might help you around the building.”

  Samson lifted a brow, skeptical. “I don’t exude wealth, Fancy Pants. No name will help me.”

  “Names are important in my world.” I wrapped my hand around the door handle. It would be fine. No one would ask too many questions. Samson would be here for the day and leave. That’s it. I jerked the door open. “I suppose they are in yours too…since you still haven’t told me your last name.”

  “I don’t have one.”

  I paused midstep, and the cool air of the building rolled over my skin. No last name? How did that even happen?

  Good grief. He was a telepath, and I was worried about his lack of a last name?

  “Good morning, Miss Ashby.” The building receptionist, Tiffany, smiled at me before giving Samson a once-over. “Is…is he going up with you?”

  “Yes.” I didn’t stop walking in hopes that I could get to the elevator before she asked more questions.

  “Sir, can you please sign in? Let me see your ID, and you can sign this.” Tiffany held out her left hand and pushed a clipboard across the desk with her right. Great. Proof of his visit.

  Samson pulled an ID card from his wallet and signed the clipboard.

  “Welcome to the Ashby Building, Mr. Brown.” Tiffany issued her customer service smile and waved toward the elevator. Thankfully, she said nothing else, and we hopped into the elevator with a pair of interns from Gerard’s floor.

  The interns gave us some serious side-eye but kept to themselves until we got off on the fortieth floor. I could only imagine what they were thinking with Samson standing there towering over them by at least a foot. If Gerard were the type to listen to gossip, I might’ve been more worried.

  Anyone affiliated with accounting had a desk on the fortieth floor. The first swath of rooms offered solitude to floor accountants, interns, and their cubicles. Accounting managers had offices next to some conference rooms, and the accounting director had an office beyond them. In the far corner, unfortunately, was Richard’s desk. I silently prayed he’d be buried in his work and too busy to see me walking in with Samson on my heels.

  As the Regional Accounting Director of the Northeast, I had my own office in the very back and a lovely secretary. The second my office came into view, Eliza’s corkscrew curls and bright-yellow dress did as well. The curious glint in her eyes didn’t make me feel better about bringing Samson to work with me.

  I didn’t want to die, so there wasn’t much of a choice. But still.

  “Hey, Matilda.” Eliza was the only one in the building that called me Matilda during work hours. Well, Eliza, my family, and more recently Richard, but the others didn’t ask for me often. Her dark eyes glinted in the fluorescents as they flickered over to Samson. She stood and adjusted her glasses. “Who’d you bring to work today?”

  “Carlisle Brown.” Samson extended a hand, and my stomach lurched at the thought of what he might hear in her head. I couldn’t handle it if the only friend I had wanted to murder me. The pair shook hands, and a part of me died a little.

  “Pleasure, Mr. Brown.” Eliza switched her attention over to me. “I sent you a text the other night to make sure you were okay. You never texted me back.”

  My face burned with guilt. Eliza was the one friend I had, and I hadn’t even thought to talk to her. Not that I could tell her about the hit or my new telepathic hire, but I could’ve said something. Literally anything.

  “I’m sorry. I was so stressed out with…” I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t talk about Popped Collar or his stupid teeth. Not right now.

  “I get it.” Eliza looked pointedly toward a cluster of cubicles. “He’s a moron, Matilda. Gotta kick him to the curb.”

  Oh. She thought I meant Richard.

  “I know.” The memory of Richard treating me like a nutcase at the benefit came back unbidden. “I’m going to. I just had a stressful weekend.”

  Eliza smiled at Samson. “You look strong. Want to beat someone’s ass for me?”

  “Sure.” He shrugged. “If the pay’s right.”

  “Eliza.” I threw up my hands between them and grabbed Samson’s arm to pull him toward my office. If Eliza noticed him wearing a jacket in ninety-degree heat, she didn’t say. “Has anyone called for me yet?”

  “Richard,” she said with a scrunched nose, “and your dad.”

  My stomach plummeted to my feet at the mention of my father. “What? When?”

  “Um.” Eliza held up her wrist and looked at her watch. “Ten minutes ago? He said when you got in to send you up to his office.”

  No.

  No. No. No.

  The glass wall separating my office from the rest of the floor didn’t offer much of a refuge to panic behind as Samson and I tucked ourselves inside. Could the interns see the shake in my hands? Surely they did. I dropped in my chair and put my purse in the bottom drawer of my desk, gaze glued to the black phone sitting in front of me.

  Why did he have to call today? He never called me at work.

  “You’re being weird.”

  Samson’s voice pulled me out of my fear and back into the real world. The world where I was an adult, and I had to grow a spine. The world where someone wanted to kill me, and I needed to figure out who.

  “I don’t want to hear it.” The comfort of my leather chair would have to wait until I got back, but I’d enjoy it for a few more seconds. “I’ve got to go meet my father.”

  Samson tucked his hands in his coat pockets and rocked on his heels. “Do you trust me?”

  “Not really.” My chair swiveled, and I nervously bou
nced my feet against the white tile. “Why?”

  He chuckled. “I was going to investigate, which would require me to walk around.”

  “All right.” I pushed myself to my feet. “I can get you around.”

  Eliza had taken a seat at her desk again, but she didn’t look the least bit sorry when I turned around to catch her staring at us through the glass. She didn’t even look away when I opened my office door.

  “Eliza, can you get Mr. Brown a contractor’s badge?” She opened a drawer to the right of her desk. “He’s going to walk around the building while I pay my father a visit.”

  “And what services is Mr. Brown providing for us this morning?” Eliza asked with a sly smile as she pulled out a white badge with a metal clip on it. CONTRACTOR was the only thing written on it. If I survived this contract, I might kill Eliza.

  Samson took the badge and clipped it to the front of his jacket. At least he looked like our usual contractors. Well, technically he really was a type of contractor, just an illegal one.

  “Pest control,” he said with a mischievous grin. “I can take it from here, Miss Ashby. I’ll be close.”

  I grimaced. I didn’t like him calling me Miss Ashby for some reason. That was for work and…people I didn’t enter into million-dollar illegal contracts with.

  But I couldn’t say anything about it without drawing attention. So I spun on a heel and left Samson with Eliza, a decision I would probably pay for later.

  Thirteen

  Milton Ashby was the most terrifying human being on the planet, and that included human beings that could travel via shadows or possessed a set of demon teeth. He lurked in one of two offices on the forty-sixth floor, and I couldn’t visit unless I’d been summoned or scheduled a prior appointment.

  Accountants peeked at me from over the top of their cubicles as I walked to the elevator. Rumors undoubtedly floated around. Between my hurried departure from the charity benefit to having Samson by my side that morning, they were loaded up with plenty of ammunition for gossip. It would definitely get worse when people found out about my trip to the top floor.

  I pressed the button to call the elevator and heaved a sigh. I hadn’t thought about it, but this kill contract would make my work life even more difficult than it was on its own merits. How could I focus on company accounts and quarterly reports with the weight of impending doom hanging on my shoulders?

  “And I’ve only been dealing with work for thirty minutes,” I muttered and pinched the bridge of my nose. Maybe I should just jump off the roof and get it over with. Write a check out for Samson in advance for time wasted.

  A firm grip of fingers around my elbow sent a jolt of fear through my nerves. With my heart in my throat, I whirled around, fist raised—

  “Whoa, whoa!” Fingers wrapped around my wrist. “Matilda, stop it!”

  As my world righted itself, I found myself in the grip of Richard Jones. My face, hot and somehow chilled at the same time, had to look manic.

  “W-What are you doing?” He relinquished me, and I absently rubbed my wrist. My heart beat in perfect tandem with every tremor of my hand. “You can’t sneak up on me like that.”

  Eyes from employees were upon us. Maybe Richard was the next hit man, so he could just kill me right then and there. It had to be better than this.

  Richard narrowed his eyes. “That body really got to you, didn’t it?”

  Thankfully, the elevator arrived, and I could escape the watchful eyes of my coworkers. The elevator doors peeled apart, and I stepped inside.

  “Yeah, and you never called to check on me,” I said with a raised brow. Richard blushed and pressed number forty-six. Since I didn’t really care about Richard’s lack of a phone call, I changed the subject. “Why are you going to forty-six?”

  “I’m going up to see my dad about an account.”

  I stared at him, eyebrow arched just so. “What account?”

  He had a folder in his hands. A thick one too.

  “Oh.” Richard held the folder up. There were a couple of pastel-yellow sticky notes stuck to the front with phone numbers scrawled on them. “Um. This one.”

  “Who’s the account?” I put my hands on my hips. “You need to be coming to me first. Not your father.”

  “Well, I didn’t know if I should because we’re dating. Conflict of interest.” He smirked, and I fought a glower.

  Why was I still dating him? I could end it right here, right now, and I knew I’d feel a significant amount of relief. I resisted the urge and focused on work. Breaking up with Richard before meeting my father was a recipe for disaster and disownment.

  “How is it a conflict of interest? I don’t own any companies that do work with the Ashby Corporation, and I didn’t make any of the business contracts, so I can’t earn commission on anything.” The urge to audibly groan was overpowering. Seriously, did he even know what conflict of interest meant? “I have nothing to gain from managing any accounts, which means I should be the next person to discuss problems with after your supervisor, manager, and director.”

  Richard stared at me before holding the folder out for me to grab. “I like it when you talk like that. All bossy.”

  “Like I understand my job?” I grabbed the folder and flipped it open. “Don’t talk to me like that.”

  I should’ve amended the statement with “at work,” but I didn’t want him to talk to me like that elsewhere either.

  Why did I let my father talk me into dating him? Why was I such a pushover?

  The elevator reached the forty-sixth floor as I opened the folder. Several packets, stacked together and clipped with an inordinate amount of paper clips, almost distracted me from the information I really wanted. My gaze darted to the top left corner of the cover sheet toward the account information, and my jaw dropped.

  “Richard, why do you have this account?” He couldn’t be this inept. “It’s way over your clearance and your pay grade. This account is over my pay grade.”

  He frowned and nestled close to my side as we walked out of the elevator, eyebrows screwed together in thought. “I don’t know. It was in a stack of contracts my dad gave me.”

  “And you never thought for a second that perhaps it was a mistake?” The receptionist for the floor, Blair, watched us from her desk. I could feel her fake eyelashes batting away at us as I jabbed at the cover sheet with my finger. “This account is for a government contractor. It says so right there. You aren’t allowed to see this.”

  “Maybe Dad was testing me. You know, to see if I deserved my promotion.” Richard smiled, unfazed by my wide eyes.

  There were several things going through my mind right then. I’d likely have been more worried about it if I hadn’t been trying not to die all weekend.

  “Promotion?”

  “It’s unofficial right now. I’ll tell you about it tonight.” Richard waved to Blair and pulled the file away from my hands. The platinum blonde’s pristine teeth shimmered when her mouth stretched into a smile. Her desk effectively blocked the only hallway that led to both my father and Edgar Jones, so we couldn’t avoid the encounter.

  “What’s tonight, Richard?” Blair leaned forward on her desk. The way she positioned herself to give Richard a shot of her cleavage down her hot-pink blouse was painfully obvious.

  “I’m taking Matilda out to dinner.” Richard straightened his charcoal suit jacket. “The Dove.”

  Blair arched her sculpted brows in surprise. “That’s for important dinners.”

  “And this will be the dinner of the year.”

  My chest, tight and sore from a blend of stress and panic, almost crushed my heart into a lifeless blob. I focused on the air conditioner blowing through the vent overheard and the swing of my ponytail along my neck. Anything that wasn’t related to Richard, his idiocy, or this surprise dinner.

  “I don’t remember being asked,” I managed to say.

  “He asked me,” a familiar, absolutely terrifying voice echoed along the hall, “and I wis
hed him well.”

  Milton Ashby, son of the late multimillionaire Ernest Ashby, was a six-foot beacon of success in the halls of any building he traversed. His desire for perfection reflected in the perfect press in his suit jackets, the tailoring of his pants, and the shine of his black shoes. My father’s hair, a shocking white like his shirt, had been coifed the exact same way for over two decades. When his barber died, I wasn’t sure what he’d do.

  I closed my eyes and let out a slow exhale. This whole dinner thing was my fault. I should’ve never agreed to go on a date with Richard in the first place, much less continued seeing him for as long as I had. Now it appeared to be shaping into a proposal, and the thought made my skin crawl.

  Edgar Jones stood beside my father in a khaki suit, but he’d somehow missed the same level of immaculate my father achieved. His crooked nose and bushy eyebrows sucked sophistication right out of him, much like his son’s open mouth did for his ability to be attractive.

  “Let’s go, Matilda.” My father turned around and left Edgar with Richard. Edgar’s cheeks, pushed up high on his cheekbones as he beamed at his son, couldn’t have been more opposite of my father’s displeased scowl.

  “Your brothers are in my office. When Gerard beats you to a meeting, it makes one wonder.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. It made him wonder about my professionalism. My competence. My ability to lead inside his corporation.

  “I apologize.” Richard’s laugh echoed behind us. “Richard was working on an account that he had no business working on, and—”

  “His father is the chief financial officer. I’d let Edgar decide what Richard is allowed to work on, hmm?”

  I curled my fingers into fists at my side, and we approached the heavy wooden door leading to my father’s office. I don’t know why I bothered. Nothing I said made a difference. I was a woman in a man’s world, and if my father had his way, I’d quit working altogether after I got married. And by the looks of it, he was still adamant about my future husband being Richard Jones.